STUDIES ON FERMENTATION, 165 



Up tp March not one of the tubes containing the wood of 

 dry bunches brought from the Jura, which had fermented, 

 showed any signs of apiculahis or of pastorianuSj or anything 

 besides the ordinary low yeast of wine, saccharomyceH 

 eliipsoideus* 



It would be a study of much interest to determine if yeast exists 

 on other species of plants besides the vine. During the winter 

 we could discover it on no others. Once during the winter, 

 experimenting on box, we obtained fermentation in one of our 

 tubes which contained must In a great number of other 

 experiments we obtained nothing besides moulds and growths 

 of dematium, alternaria, and torulacc(e. 



Our observations in Chap. Ill § 6, taken in connection with 

 those which we have just made, prove that the yeasts of 

 fermentation, after being dried, preserve the faculty of 

 germination longer than the germ-cells which are scattered 

 over the dead wood of the vine. 



As might be expected, a microscopical examination of the 

 particles of dust scattered over the surface of the fruit and 

 woody peduncles of grapes, reveals great differences in the 

 number of these fertile particles at different periods of the vege- 

 tation of the grapes. As long as the grapes are green and the vine 

 in full activity we find scarcely an}-, or, at all events, very few 

 spores which seem to belong to ordinary fungoid growths. 

 Towards autumn, however, when the grape is ripening and the 

 leaves becoming yellow, fungoid growths and numerous pro- 

 ductions of great fertility accumulate on the vine, on the 

 leaves, the branches, and the bunches. At this period we 

 find the water in which the grapes and the woody parts of the 

 bunches are washed swarming with difierent kinds of organ- 

 ized corpuscles ; it is at this period, too, that the ferment- 



* Dr. Eees has given the name saccharomyres elUpsoideus to the ferment 

 of wine represented in Plates VIII. to XI. of our " Studies on Wine," 

 which we have termed the ordinary ferment of wine, from its being the 

 most abundant of the ferments found at the end of the fermentation that 

 produces the wine. 



